Nat's 2022 Technical Link Pile: C# and .NET
See the Intro for context. (We’re hiring WinForms seniors! Mail me: nat@ontempo.co.nz) [20221224] How to Structure Your .NET Solutions: Architecture and Trade-Offs – what it says on the box. …
new-zealand
Nat's 2022 Technical Link Pile: Dev, Architecture, APIs
See the Intro for context. [20221231] Temporal.io – With Temporal, you write your various complex, potentially long-running actions as normal, synchronous code, which Temporal …
Nat's 2022 Technical Link Pile: Front End/Flutter/Dart/UI
See the Intro for context. [20221231] React Admin – claims of a full-featured data grid, which is 50-80% of many of our apps. (As well as roles & permissions and validations) [20221224] …
Nat's 2022 Technical Link Pile: GPT-3
See the Intro for context. (Also, this was a late addition and I’m focused in my interest, so this is thin) [20221231] Reverse Engineering Notion’s Prompts – in Hacker News …
Nat's 2022 Technical Link Pile: Intro
I used to read a lot of the technical web and social media for O’Reilly Media, where I wrote the daily “Four Short Links” digest. I still read a lot of online content, but now for my …
Nat's 2022 Technical Link Pile: Management
See the Intro for context. [20221231] Four Day Work Week Going Well – 97% of the 495 respondents want to stay with a four-day workweek and so do the 27 companies that responded. [20221223] 20 …
Nat's 2022 Technical Link Pile: Product
See the Intro for context. [20220203] Tree/Loop Prompts Our ability to ________ is a function of our ability to ________ ________ has a number of contributing factors, including ________ When ________ …
Nat's 2022 Technical Link Pile: Security
See the Intro for context. [20221223] PEACH Framework for Cloud Security – risks associated with customer-facing interfaces and determines: the complexity of the interface as a predictor of …
Nat's 2022 Technical Link Pile: SQL Server/Databases
See the Intro for context. [20221231] Job Drain Pattern – we make heavy use of this internally. Cf In-Memory Outbox: an easy-to-use, reliable solution to perform atomic operations that update a …
Nat’s 2022 Technical Link Pile: Interesting Software
See the Intro for context. [20221231] EndBasic – BASIC with cloud, DOS-like GUI. Actively developed. [20221231] pbproxy – send your clipboard anywhere you can ssh. [20221231] LCARS – …
Nat’s 2022 Technical Link Pile: Random
See the Intro for context. [20221231] 36 Things I Learned in 2022 – #1 blew my mind: For the first time in history in 2020, the weight of things produced by humans (concrete, metals, plastic) …
Acoustic Bandcamp Recommendations
Last updated: 2022-04-10 Bandcamp is a great place to buy music, because most of the money you pays goes straight to the artist. If you buy on a special Bandcamp Friday, then Bandcamp don’t even take …
5G Public Works Project
I’ve seen a few people propose a big government project around 5G mobile technology. I couldn’t find more detail to any proposals, so I did my own research to inform my own opinions on …
The T in CTO doesn’t stand for Talk
Looks like NZ will get a CTO real soon now. It’s hard to avoid the word “debacle” in describing how it came about: a false start at making an appointment, a whiff of impropriety in …
Proposed Changes to NZ's R&D Incentives
There’s an open consultation about to end, on the changes MBIE would like to make to NZ’s R&D incentives. In particular, they’ll phase out the Callaghan Growth Grants and replace …
On Moving to New Zealand
Hello, American friends! President-Elect Trump has given his speech and begun to redact his campaign website of the obviously illegal and impossible campaign promises, and you look up from your …
Startups and failure
(Wynyard Group, an NZ tech high-growth company [or, perhaps, not-so-high growth] just entered voluntary administration. On Twitter, a friend was adamant bad luck had nothing to do with it. Instead of …
Job Titles
Job titles don’t matter, because it’s the work that counts. But job titles matter because they get you meetings with partners, interviews for next jobs, etc. They send signals that can be …
NZ Herald's "News" Is Shit and Lazy
tl;dr: Today’s NZ Herald drove me to this analysis/rant. I’m giving the damn thing up and will get my news from other sites, Radio New Zealand and NewsHub. You should too. I can’t …
Kiwi Startups in Silicon Valley
I was asked for comment by Bill Bennet from the NZ Herald, for a piece on Kiwi startups moving to Silicon Valley. He built a nice little article, in which “Torkington says” features …
Lighting a Spark Under Telecom
Telecom New Zealand is changing its name to Spark. Most commentators regard it as a backward move, most recently Lance Wiggs who diagnoses marketing capture, distraction from executive and board, and …
Andreas Schleicher to NZ Members of Parliament
Andreas Schleicher runs the PISA programme for the UN. PISA is the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment, a test given to 15-year-old students from most of the world. Data about the …
What is PaCT and Why Did It Cost $6M?
(this post is about the New Zealand education system. I wanted to say more than Twitter made easy) NZ has an amazing education system. We went through the “Tomorrow’s Schools” …
Dear Boosted: Surprise Me and Succeed
The NZ Arts Foundation has launched Boosted, a way to crowdfund arts projects. Now, if you’re like me, you’re probably wondering “don’t we already have several ways of doing …
Copywrongs and Katherine Mansfield
Katherine Mansfield is New Zealand’s literary icon: feminist, bisexual, incredibly gifted, part of the Bloomsbury circle of clever people pushing literary form before she died of tuberculosis. …
Week Note 3
(belated) Monday was a big day: I confirmed the hiring of my first employee, and gave a seminar at Auckland University on open research. The employee is my sister (getting back into the workforce …
Delayed Broadcast of International Programs
It’s always seemed strange to me that local broadcasters would hold off broadcasting Dr Who, Mad Men, and other high-profile shows. Viewers chatter about it as soon as an episode airs in its …
Judge Harvey, Kim Dotcom, and The Press
Judge David Harvey has stepped down from the Kim DotCom case. At NetHui last week, he led a discussion of copyright where opinions from the floor were variously thoughtful, passionate, and novel. He …
Schools and Belief
Most of us have a case of “you don’t know what you don’t know”: we don’t know the range of what’s possible, so we continue doing things as we’ve seen them …
Education and Technology
I’ve been in the position of being a geek talking with teachers for a while, and I’ve found it best to approach the whole area of education with humility. In education, as in business, you …
Holiday Road Toll
Every long weekend we hear how many people died, as though it means something, but there’s never any analysis beyond whether it’s more or less than last year’s number. It …
2011 in Books
I’ve been conscientiously using Goodreads to review every book I read. I’ve used the Goodreads API, some Perl, and some Javascript to boil down my year’s reading. Without further …
National Standards, Charter Schools, and a Pint on the Future
tl;dr: Charter schools aren’t a panacea, they don’t appear to be compatible with the emphasis on National Standards, and this seems like the top of a slippery slope which will result in us …
Libraries: Where It All Went Wrong
It was my pleasure to address the National and State Librarians of Australasia on the eve of their strategic planning meeting in Auckland at the start of November this year. I have been involved in …
Innovation is a Moral Good
Pondering the New Zealand fishing industry, I had an insight today. Forgive me if it’s old news to you. You have three options to make more money: Lower costs. Sell more of the same stuff. Make …
Questioning University
There’s a trend now to question the value of a university education. It used to be that simply possessing a university degree gained you access to a Better Class of Job. That is no longer the …
Two Upcoming Auckland Gigs
Our band has two gigs coming up in Auckland and we’d love to see you there! We play The Thirsty Dog on K Rd on Sunday, and the set is shaping up to be a good ‘un: the songs we were playing …
100% Pure Chickenshit
New Zealand has, for a long time, marketed itself as 100% Pure. In the last year, this slogan has taken a beating. The climax seems to have been when BBC Hardtalk interviewer Stephen Sackur gave Prime …
Nine to Noon: 3 March 2011
This post is about my 3 March 2011 appearance on Nine to Noon on Radio New Zealand. Listen to the show in MP3 and OGG. My notes below were made during research for the show, but we often depart from …
Kiwi Foo Turns 5
We’re counting down the days here at the mothership, getting ready for the 5th Kiwi Foo Camp. It’s hard to believe this is year five already, the time’s flown by. I’ve had a …
Changing the Demographics of Innovation
Text of notes for a talk given at the 50th Anniversary Conference of the New Zealand Computer Society in Rotorua, 17 September 2010. I will link to video when it’s posted by the conference …
From our local newspaper
Our local newspaper, Mahurangi Matters, had this great piece of short news (sadly not online yet): Local firemen recently responded to a 3.30am call “power causing concern”. The homeowner …
Joined Silverstripe Board
Last month I was honoured to join Silverstripe as a director. Silverstripe makes an open source Content Management System backed by Sapphire, an elegant PHP framework, builds websites for NZ and …
NZ Doing Good in ACTA Negotiation
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is an agreement between countries around IP rights and enforcement. The negotiations have been happening in secret, with every country saying …
Media 7: Social Media
I had a good time a few weeks ago with Russell Brown, Vaughn Davis, and Ms Behaviour talking about social media on the Media 7 show. You can watch it online.
Auckland City Data Sales
I used LGOIMA, the local government equivalent of the Official Information Act, to request details on how much revenue Auckland City council and the Auckland-area collective geospatial body made from …
NZICT Near Future Digital Priorities Paper
NZICT is an industry lobby group, representing the NZ ICT industry (software, hardware, services, networks, education, and training). They’ve just released a “Near Future Digital …
Telecom Encouraging Uploads
Citing growth in photo-sharing and social media sites, Telecom have announced they won’t charge for upstream traffic. That is to say, upload photos and movies all you like until the end of …
Open Access Day at Victoria University
If you’re in Wellington on the week of October 19, check out Victoria University’s Open Access events. There are a pile of events and talks planned on the campus for that week as part of …
Libraries, Health, and Internet
Not the solution to the world’s problems, just my agenda this week. Mon-Wed was in Christchurch for the LIANZA conference. Wednesday night, a HISAC dinner. Thursday is a HISAC meeting, the last …
Minister of Internal Affairs (pre)
I’m meeting the Minister of Internal Affairs for 20m today at 12.30. I want to talk with him about the Government’s move to open data: what do they hope to achieve, what is he driving, and …
Wellington on a Good Day
“You can’t beat Wellington on a good day,” say the Wellingtonians. Today is not that good day, however, and Wellington could be beaten like a red-headed stepchild. I’m in town …
Nine to Noon: 12 August 2009
I went through two telephones in this Colorado house and neither of them could hold onto the call. Now that’s frustrating! Here’s what I was going to speak about: I will talk about recent …
Nine to Noon: 2 July 2009
Listen to my 2 July 2009 appearance on Radio New Zealand’s Nine to Noon show. I spoke about emotional robots, Kiwi web awards, and a new US government transparency web site. Below are my notes. I …
Open New Zealand
Glen Barnes and I have softlaunched opengovt.org.nz, an effort to do some MySociety-style projects for New Zealand. Glen’s built a catalog for open government data, and there’s a mailing …
Beetroot
I’ve grown a row of beetroot and now I’m nervously wondering what the hell one does with a row of beetroot. I asked on Twitter, and here are the first 90m or so of responses: @annaraven: …
Open the DOC Preliminary Reports
I sent this to Minister Worth (in his Internal Affairs role) and Laurence Millar (as Government CIO) today because they both have a desire to see more open government information. Posted FYI, and …
From Barbie to Renoir: Intellectual Property and Culture
This talk looks to be interesting: Since intellectual property law’s beginning competing interests have stretched the law. Barbie now has more protection against rip-offs than Renoir could have …
Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy
The New York Public Library and Wired Magazine have collaborated to bring a set of evening lectures on how new technology is changing the economics of art with speakers Lawrence Lessig, Stephen …
NZ Broadband
There hasn’t been a lot of action from the new Government on broadband (or anything, really, yet) but this Economist article is food for thought about spending priorities: When it comes to …
S92A: Interim Repeat Infringer Termination Policy
The Telecommunications Carriers Forum have released a note to ISPs saying that while they’re working on a policy that will comply with S92A of the Copyright Act (“An Internet Service …
Submission on NZ IP law and a free trade agreement with USA
SUBMISSION ON THE TRANSPACIFIC STRATEGIC ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES To: Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade Introduction This Submission is from Nathan …
National Library joins Flickr Commons
Way to go, National Library of New Zealand! They’re the latest addition to Flickr Commons!
Good one, National Library!
My friend Aaron Swartz writes about the increasingly-evil OCLC: Not satisfied with controlling the world’s largest source of book information, it wants to take over all the smaller ones as well. …
More on the bizdev shortage in NZ
James McGlinn emailed me a great reply to my piece on the business cofounder shortage in NZ, and he’s finally posted it. You should read it because I agree with everything he says.
NZ Broadband Pricing and Network Neutrality
In this Ziff-Davis Australia article, the leaders of Australia’s three largest ISPs declare network neutrality to be an American problem and explain why. It’s an interesting argument, but …
Software Freedom Day Notes: ACTA
Mark Harris lead this session. Was at SSC, MORST, now Independent. When Wikileaks in May released ACTA doc, saw NZ mentioned, began digging. ACTA is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Proposed …
Business values
I had dinner tonight with my friend Cath Lewis, the awesome real estate agent. She told me that her new company felt right because honesty and empathy were at the top of their values. I think most of …
Software Freedom Day
I’ll be in Wellington on Saturday, September 20th, for Software Freedom Day. It’s open source’s open day, a chance for the general public who might have been curious about open …
Webstock 2009 Lineup Announced
I’m speaking at Webstock 2009 and really looking forward to it. What an amazing lineup of talent they have! I’ve been privileged to meet many of these folks before, and I’m honoured …
The Tyranny of Distance
Jenny Morel is raising a $100M NZ VC fund. That’s good news, in that NZ needs smart angels and VCs. I’ve had a number of NZ friends making the rounds of US venture capital firms and angels …
Lazyweb: NZ Budget Hero
I’m impressed by Budget Hero, a game from the American Marketplace radio show. It lets you see the effects of the various spending possibilities (bring the troops back home, raise the social …
NZ Values
I had a thought on Saturday that wouldn’t let go. Here’s the brief pitch: let me know what you think.
National's Broadband Plans
I see in Rod Drury’s blog that National have released their first real economic policy and it’s to do with funding fibre-to-the-home in NZ. It’s good! Anyone who travels knows how …
Telecom hosting not worth the premium
A client made the decision to use Telecom as their web site host. I argued against it because the price differential was so great between Telecom and, well, anyone else. The client’s management …
Explaining technology in words
Julie Starr faced an interesting problem recently: how to explain RSS, aggregators, even Twitter to a room full of journalism students … without slides or a net connection. In attempting this, …
Font Geeks in New Zealand
I often joke that Foo Camp (“Friends of O’Reilly”) should be Font Camp (Friends of Nat Torkington) in New Zealand. I love typography and was delighted to find “The Font Scene …
Crafty Kiwis
Congrats to Sue Tyler and the Ponoko team, and all the others who were interviewed by Peter Griffin for the Idealog issue focusing on craft. The article (which will be online in a few weeks) has …
All Good
I haven’t blogged in a while. That doesn’t mean things are bad. In fact, it’s the complete opposite. Something happened around September, the end of my last trip away for …
The Eyes Have It
About two weeks ago, my uncle Zom got a little carried away with some repairs in the cabin and drove the family fishing boat (“Foam”) onto some rocks. Getting it off damaged the propeller …
From US to NZ
I just got back from a week in the US for Foo Camp, where I had a great time shopping two ideas around: New Zealand can be a hub of innovation, and Kids aren’t being turned onto science and …
Jesus Christ
Before I left for my last trip to the US, I went to a school board meeting where a program called Super Kids was discussed. It’s a kids Christian program that wanted to use the House Of Learning …
House Under Contract
Great news! The house in Colorado is under contract, they inspect tomorrow morning, and then hopefully it’s smooth sailing to closure. This is it: if it falls through, I’m renting it out. …
Home Sweet Home
Back in New Zealand after nearly three months away. What a lot of culture shock there was, both in leaving and returning. Leaving: it’s so easy to return to the US, yet so hard. The traffic was …
NZ Expanding Immigration
NZ Herald reports the government wants at least 47,000 skilled immigrants and will recognize skills in applicants from India and China for the first time. I love that the desired professions include …
Budget
Six months back in the country, I’ve formed some opinions about where NZ is lacking. I was interested to see how the budget would address what I’ve identified as the country’s …
School Update
In the past month or more I’ve been working hard on making sure William had a good experience at school. I talked to his teachers to make sure that they were keeping their eyes open for bullying …
NZ Internet Use
There were 1.24 million active internet subscribers in New Zealand between March and September 2005 (NZ pop = 4M, remember) 70%, or 869,300, were modem users Total residential internet penetration was …
What Makes a Good Day
Today was unsatisfactory. I worked a solid 8 hours, packed in the email, made a coworker laugh, and made significant progress towards a goal. So why, at the end, do I feel blah? I was so knackered …
Valentine's Day
We took William out of school for the day, drove down to Auckland, and went to Kelly Tarlton’s World (like the Monterey Aquarium) and then to a buffet for lunch. Very luxurious, but you have to …
Tuis
The tuis (TOO-ees) sing outside my office window and it’s fantastic. Here are some pointers to tui sites: Kiwi Wildlife Tours audio of birdsongs, White Heron Tours tui sounds, Wikipedia entry on …
Te Reo and Kiwi Culture Links
Some things I’ve found while surfing: Basics of Maori, Maori pronunciation, Interactive Maori conversations, Maori Language NZ Anthem, Background and recordings of the NZ anthems.
Weather, School, and Ditch-Digging
It’s been an adventurous week, weather-wise. Being away for so long, I’d forgotten the misty mornings that are classic New Zealand fare. We had a front parked over us for four or five …
Boat and Land
I’m reading Russell Brown’s collection of other people’s essays, Great New Zealand Argument, and at the same time I’m reading The Nationbuilders by Brian Easton. Both tackle …
VCs and Contacts
Today I went to Auckland to meet Russell Brown of Public Address, to my uncle’s work, then finally to meet with some VCs. Russell first. He’s an interesting guy, very articulate (as befits …
Schools, Rats, and Parents
It’s been hard to balance life and work here on the other side of the world. Some days the work consumes me and I ignore family (bad Dad!) and other days I’m burnt out and can’t face …
Day 13: Love of a Small Country
Today I sent email to, and got replies from, the acting CEO of New Zealand On Air, and the general editor of Te Ara (the Encyclopedia of New Zealand). I love that these people are so accessible. …
Day 12: Rural Schools
Today Jenine helped out at William’s school, and we learned that there’s quite the gulf between the grouchy old woman teaching his class and the sweet old woman who taught him in Colorado. …
Day 10: Rural Power
I’d forgotten how amazing New Zealand’s weather is. We’re just a thin strip of island in a lot of water, close to Antarctica. The weather’s always shifting: some good stuff, …
Day 9: First Computer Conference
I think I’m probably doing it a favour calling it a conference: Convergence Oceania was a Wireless Forum sell shop, an expo hall with a room featuring the biggest exhibitors. Everyone’s …
Day 8
I’ve been stuck into work, and it’s interesting how the cycle of the day is different here. I only overlap the West Coast of America’s work day for five hours–by 2pm my time, …
Day 5: Doctor
It’s wonderful how easy it is to see a doctor over here. Our local GP, Elspeth, had a busy day but still managed to fit Jenine in. Jenine was dizzy, which was diagnosed as nothing more than a …
Day 3: On Caring
Another full day: we drove to Auckland to collect a fridge we bought on TradeMe, I cleaned the rusty grill, and began the rehabiliation of teh house. I hosed off the front wall and windows, digging …
Day 4: Taking It Easy
Finally we went to the beach today (Sunday). It was good to walk on Omaha again, white sand crackling underfoot. The kids could have spent all day there, and I’m sure they’ll spend many …
Day 1
The problem with flying to New Zealand from America is that if you get a well-timed flight, you don’t really have jetlag on the first day. You get this fantastic feeling of competence, because …
Day 2
I don’t know whether it’s the equinox or the move, but it feels like there’s SO MUCH TIME in the day. I wove flax with the kids, my parents arrived down the road from us …
2006 School Terms and Holidays
Straight from the Ministry of Education comes 2006 Term and Holiday Dates.
Day 0
Flight summary follows. Qantas: very good. Kids: great. Sleep: taken where it could be got. Customs failed to care about our coffee: Customs: What are you declaring? Us: Coffee. Customs: Any honey or …
Public Funding of Science a Shambles in NZ
Great guest rant on Public Address by a CRI (formerly DSIR, government scientific research org) talking about insanity of current contestable funding mechanisms. “A staggering amount of a …
Interview with Pita Sharples
I was prepared to think of the questioning of Maori rituals as more political bizarrity, until I read this eloquent explanation from Pita Sharples in Public Address. Now it makes perfect sense.
Google Maps-style Map of New Zealand
I can see my house from here.
Google Maps-style Map of New Zealand
I can see my house from here.
Options for NZ Mobile Diversity
New Zealand Herald article on the Irish mobile phone ecosystem, framed as “perhaps New Zealand could do this”. I’d be interested to know NZ’s mobile phone ownership as …
Public Address, Hard News, and Russell Brown
Public Address is a “community of New Zealand-centric weblogs” from interesting people, such as Hard News by Russell Brown.
New Zealand Now
New Zealand Now is a site for expat Kiwis, hoping to lure them back with information they might want: How do I set up a business and register a name?, Is it easy for my partner or children to get …
Kiwi VoIP Termination
CallPlus, WorldxChange, FX Networks (perhaps). (via Sai)
Young Women Flock to New Zealand
New Zealand Herald article I’m showing all my (male) friends about why it’s a great idea to move to New Zealand.
Kea - Social Network of New Zealanders
Kea New Zealand is “global community of people who help each other achieve great things all over the world because of the connection they share with New Zealand.” Virtual Rotary Club :-)
Top 20 Jobs Done By Migrants in NZ
Fascinating report on the jobs that migrants with higher degrees or university degrees do when they get to NZ. Biggest category is computer professionals. Windows doesn’t just reboot itself, …
Anzac Quickies
Anzac Day is Veteran’s Day for New Zealand and Australia. Two great pieces on it: history and some intelligent questioning at the bottom of this.
Rollercoasters
We had a great run of a few weeks where the weather and family travels aligned: Dad and I were both back, so we got to do a lot of fishing boat activity. One day we caught a ton of fish (they were …
Development
Yesterday we went to the Silverdale A&P show (Agricultural and Pastoral) with our friend Pam and her two kids aged about 13 and 14. It was a blast, with everything from prize pumpkins (112kg or …